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Monday, October 9, 2006

SuicideGirls

SUICIDEGIRLS

A few weeks ago, Jeff asked if I wanted to come check out the SuicideGirls live burlesque show. I'm down for burlesque. Never been to a live burlesque show except for the striptease Dita Von Teese did at the Playboy Club a couple of years ago. (I still have the stocking she wrapped around my head somewhere. I'm sentimental.) Otherwise, I know The Pussycat Dolls used to do burlesque in LA but my familiarity with burlesque came mainly from The Simpsons episode with "Le Maison Derriere."

I'd only tangentially heard of the SuicideGirls before. They're pretty hot. Tattooed girls with piercings usually aren't really my thing, for better or worse. The 'pretty hot' part won out after a consultation with my penis. He agreed with Jeff and seemed to think the SuicideGirls live burlesque show was worth a look-see. Both of them together know better than me, plus it was only $15, so yeah, I'm in.

The SuicideGirls put on a terrific fucking show. I didn't really have a solid idea of what we were in for on the outset, but the girls totally delivered. First, yes, they are naked, but no, not entirely. They always wear bottoms and electrical tape covers their nipples (they kept asking us if we wanted to see their nipples and then called us perverts. Hey, lady, I resemble that remark.) Besides that, they're as God made them, except for the ink. The SuicideGirls are not Playboy models; they don't resemble the stripper-next-door that Hef became infatuated with as he's grown ancient. They don't have implants and their bodies are all natural. And holy shit, are they hot. They are much, much hotter in person than even their photographs on the SuicideGirls website.

Eight girls performed for us, sometimes in groups, but each had at least one spotlight vignette to herself. The vignettes each told a specific story, always with the capper of the girls removing their tops. Some of the best included the girls dancing on a ladder and one of them using a glowing hoola hoop. Some vignettes were dark and violent, like a recreation of the ear cutting scene from Reservoir Dogs or one involving "Paris Hilton" and her like getting their throats slit by Nixon, the most goth Suicide Girl. The funniest by far involved one of The Middle East's burly security guards getting a lapdance and being dominated. He was absolutely intent on staring straight ahead and keeping a poker face, seemingly willing an erection away. The other SuicideGirls watching from the sides were dying from laughter. He was a pretty good sport.

The girls were diverse enough for various tastes, leaning decidedly towards goth, punk and club styles. They were each in their own way totally awesome. One of our favorites was Austin, the redhead with arms so toned Evangeline Lilly would have to do a couple of hundred pushups a day to compete. And Austin's ass shaking could force Shakira home to Columbia and send her back to the drawing board. Jeff was pretty enamored with Austin 's hotness. My personal favorite was Reagan, the tall, lean blonde of the group. (She's the blonde in the picture above the word "Coming." Apt.) Reagan introduced us to the rules: no cameras and, like George Sr.'s prison in Arrested Development, no touching. Reagan doesn't just have charisma, she has the extra oomph, what Chris Jericho used to refer to as cha-RAZZ-ma. She laughed and smiled, interacted with the crowd, and looked like she was having the most fun out there. Her Napoleon Dynamite dance was another real crowd pleaser. And she was the one who got on the house mic and kept calling us perverts. That always wins me over.

The girls got us pretty dirty in the end, spraying the crowd with beer and silly string. Reagan is so good at drinking a beer and spitting it out in a cloud, Triple H ought to consider a new finish for his monster ring entrance. The burlesque show ran somewhere between an hour and ninety minutes. But even before the SuicideGirls took the stage we'd already more than had our $15 of entertainment.

The opening act was advertised as RedYellow and they were pretty good. They had a really hot bass guitarist and their lead singer made several forays into the crowd, singing to one guy in particular in the front row who left after their set was over. What we never saw coming was the second act: Tsu Shi Ma Mi Rae, three tiny girls from Japan who barely speak English. They put on a set as bizarre as it was surprisingly musically accomplished. They sang entirely in Japanese. Their crazy bassist convulsed around the stage with no regard for her own physical safety. Their drummer broke one of her drums ("Numba one strong drumma!") and while the roadies replaced it, the nigh-incomprehensible lead singer told stories to the crowd, occasionally leading us in chanting Japanese curse words. They were cute, energetic, and so happy to be there, you had to be a churl not to appreciate them. The churl I speak of, a guy named Seth we were crammed up next to in front of the stage, spent their entire set complaining and burying his face in his hands. He was being quite a douche. Tsu Shu Ma Mi Rae was weird and a lot of fun. After the sheer entertainment and money's worth they provided, the SuicideGirls themselves were all gravy.

One of the benefits to being 30+ is that I can get in anywhere. The line stretched all the way around the block of the Middle East in Cambridge, MA and the show was sold out but Jeff had our tickets on him. Being over 21, we didn't have to wait in line. We marched right past the throng of rave kids and strolled right in, making our way to the front of the stage. Unfortunately, there was no way it was going to be a comfortable night. The Middle East downstairs is a dark, relatively cramped space with bad sightlines. By the time the SuicideGirls hit the stage, there were 500+ raver kids wedged in deeply, all trying to get as close to the naked girls as possible. It was a humid, sweaty, odorous three hour endurance test, though the entertainment was well worth it. Unfortunately, there are always going to be some douchebags in the crowd. One particular asshole kept trying to worm his way to the front of the stage, shoving and elbowing me in the back. Jeff turned to yell at him and he fed us some bullshit about how he was trying to get to his girl. What a lying cocksucker. After three hours of standing in the same spot, we know who was with everyone around us. I stonewalled that piece of shit, he never got past me.

By the end of the show, we were all suffering from the heat and exhaustion; the beer the SuicideGirls sprayed on us was sweet relief. The silly string made us look extra cool. Normally, I feel I'm too old for this shit. I'd put in my time in sweaty mosh pits a decade ago. But you just don't get to see something like that very often. Damn if the SuicideGirls didn't leave me satisfied and invigorated. And feeling, looking, and smelling dirty, in a good way.

**Three days later, I saw the SuicideGirls again with Alex Merkin, director of Across the Hall, in a dingy club in New York. Just as much fun to watch, just as dirty coming out. (That's what she said.)